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RAMALLAH, West Bank — The Palestinians will ask the U.N. Security Council to call for an Israeli
settlement freeze, President Mahmoud Abbas and his advisers decided yesterday, as part of an
escalating showdown over Israel’s new plans to build thousands more homes on war-won land in and
around Jerusalem.

Such construction will destroy any lingering hopes of setting up a Palestinian state, Abbas
aides warned.

Israel announced the new plans after the United Nations last week recognized the state of
Palestine in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem — lands Israel occupied in 1967 — as a
nonmember observer.

The plans include 3,000 more homes for Jews in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, as well as
preparations for construction of an especially sensitive project near Jerusalem known as E-1.

Separately, Israel is moving forward with two major settlement projects in east Jerusalem.
Israel would build more than 4,200 apartments in the two areas, Ramat Shlomo and Givat Hamatos.

Israeli settlement construction lies at the heart of a four-year breakdown in peace talks and
was a major factor behind the Palestinians’ U.N. statehood bid. Since 1967, half a million Israelis
have settled in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

The Israeli plans for Jerusalem and nearby West Bank areas “are the most dangerous in the
history of settlement expansion and apartheid,” Abbas and senior members of the PLO and his Fatah
movement said in a statement after a meeting yesterday evening.

The Palestinians decided to ask the Security Council for a resolution censuring Israeli
settlement building, even though a previous attempt in early 2011 was derailed by a U.S. veto.

The Palestinians say E-1 and Givat Hamatos are particularly problematic because they would cut
off east Jerusalem, the intended Palestinian capital, from the rest of the West Bank.

Israel’s plans for E-1 and Givat Hamatos “will leave us with no peace process,” Saeb Erekat, a
senior Abbas aide, said. He later told Israel TV that “it’s over” if these two settlements are
built.

“Don’t talk about peace, don’t talk about a two-state solution … talk about a one-state reality
between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean,” Erekat said, referring to the land that the
international community hopes one day will accommodate both Israel and a Palestinian state.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague told Britain’s Parliament that Israel’s building plans
would make a Palestinian state alongside Israel “almost inconceivable.”

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said construction plans would move forward,
particularly in east Jerusalem and nearby West Bank settlements.